GEM Eco Studio
GEM Eco Studio is an environmentally friendly Art, Design and Craft studio founded by artist Grace Emily Manning ~ GEM.
From a young age, I used nature to craft my fantasy worlds, beginning with fairytale houses
built at the bottom of trees.
I make bespoke a
rtisan objects rich with emotion, spirit, character
and story.
GEM Eco Studio has made work for Disney +, ITV
and Channel 4
Productions.
GEM Eco Studio is commited to bringing eco-friendly, non-toxic materials and sustainable practice to the Art & Performance Design industries, Film and Television.
Love From GEM
I started making Props for Television during Work Experience on Downton Abbey in 2009. From here, I chose to study Performance Design at Central Saint Martins in London with the aspiration of becoming a Production Designer.
In 2014 I worked on my first big fabric dyeing project, designing an installation in response to the landscape of the Lake District in collaboration with Award Winning children’s author Sita Brahmachari for Pop Up Stories, a touring Children’s Literacy Festival.
Alongside developing my own Art, I’ve worked in Art Departments for Stage and Screen as well as large scale events such as Glastonbury Festival and commercial Set Design projects,
In my personal Art Practice I look to Landscapes for inspiration, drawing on their story, ecology, history and folklore to create new ideas and Fantasy Worlds crafted from raw materials and found objects collected from the Project’s location.
It’s this method that I define as a Site-Sensitive or Site-Specific approach.
During my Masters in Experimental Animation at The Royal College of Art I created experimental Bio-materials and Natural alternatives to shop bought Art Materials.
After graduating from the RCA I moved to Birmingham and started Gardening with my brother. We foraged locally and took pruned material and green waste from clients gardens to turn into Natural Dyes for large scale Set Design projects.
Here, with the help and expertise of my Gardener brother Nathan, we grew GEM Eco Studio from the Shed in the back garden in Kings Heath, Birmingham.
I love that Period Drama is meticulously authentic which presents oppurtunity to revive and restore Heritage Craft and Traditional Arts. I see similar opportunity for Fantasy and Sci-Fi genres to embrace eco-friendly, alternative and sustainable Future Materials.